MY JOURNEY

Growing up in France with a German mother, I was immersed in a bilingual and multicultural environment. After studying business at EDHEC, a prominent French business school, I embarked on a 17-year career in finance, working in London and Paris for prestigious American and French banks, including Merrill Lynch, Lehman Brothers, BNP Paribas, and Société Générale.

My finance career started with notable success. By the age of 26, I was a Director at Lehman Brothers, deeply enthusiastic about my work. However, I soon realized that I lacked the skills to navigate professional politics and network effectively—areas where coaching would have been invaluable. Despite being recognized in my field, I faced challenges in advancing hierarchically, partly due to self-confidence issues rooted in my traditional upbringing and the additional hurdles of being a woman in a male-dominated industry.

In 2008, an international role requiring extensive travel coincided with the birth of my first child, adding to the challenge. In 2010, I co-founded a hedge fund focused on RMBS, but despite our innovative approach, we couldn't raise sufficient funds due to market conditions.